Pinned
Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim
What we learned at Thursday’s hearing.
It was one of the most striking developments yet in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and his allies: The two lead prosecutors took the witness stand Thursday in a daylong hearing, with defense attorneys grilling them about their personal lives.
The defense is arguing that Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and her office should be disqualified and removed from the prosecution, accusing her of benefiting financially from a relationship with the lead prosecutor that she hired to manage the case, Nathan Wade.
If the judge removes them from the case, it would delay and potentially derail a proceeding that has major implications for the 2024 presidential election. Here are takeaways from the combative hearing:
Defense lawyers focused on spending by the couple.
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The charges that are on your card, she gave you cash for? She did. Traveling with her is a task. You can probably imagine the attention that happens. So for safety reasons, she would limit her transactions.
In some of the sharpest questioning of the day, defense lawyers pressed Mr. Wade on his finances, attempting to raise doubt about his assertions that Ms. Willis had repaid him with cash for her share of expensive trips while they were dating, including to Belize, Aruba, Tennessee and California.
Mr. Wade called Ms. Willis an “independent strong woman” who insisted that “she is going to pay her own way.” Regarding a trip to California, he said, “everything we did when we got into Napa, she paid for.” But Mr. Wade also said she typically reimbursed him in cash, so there were no receipts available.
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It’s interesting that we’re here about this money. Mr. Wade is used to women that, as he told me one time, the only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal. I don’t need anything from a man. A man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I would give him his money back. I don’t need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who’s ever foot my bills completely is my daddy.
Ms. Willis forcefully rebutted suggestions that she had not paid her share of the trips, saying that she keeps thousands of dollars in cash secured at her home. “For many many years, I’ve kept money in my house,” she said.
A former friend challenged the timeline of the relationship.
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So you had a chance to see them interact together on a personal level? Yes. And so from everything that you saw, heard, witnessed, it’s your understanding that they were in a romantic relationship beginning in 2019? Yes. You have no doubt that their romantic relationship was in effect from 2019 until the last time you spoke with her? No doubt. O.K. And that’s based on your personal observations and speaking with them and seeing them together and things like that?. Yes.
Defense attorneys have said that the relationship between the two prosecutors started before Mr. Wade was hired in November 2021. Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have disputed that, saying the relationship started in early 2022.
Their timeline was disputed Thursday by testimony from a former friend of Ms. Willis, Robin Bryant-Yeartie, who said she had “no doubt” that the two had started a romantic relationship earlier than they have claimed.
But Mr. Wade, who testified for several hours, stood firm in the assertion that the relationship began only after he was hired. He also revealed that it had ended in summer 2023.
Fani Willis pushed back hard at the defense lawyers.
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2020. Did Mr Wade ever visit you at a place that you resides? He had never been to my home in South Fulton. 2020 was before I knew that a phone call was going to be made. And I going to have to abandon my home. As a result thereof, he never visited, lived at, came to or has seen South Fulton. You qualify that with your home in South Fulton. That’s where I lived in 2020. in 2020 did he ever visit you at a place that you resided? O.K I don’t understand. You’re going to have to give me that. In 2020, I lived in South Fulton. That’s the only place I lived in South Fulton. That’s before I had to abandon my home, judge. And at my home in South Fulton, miss. I never. He never came there. O.K., so if you don’t come someplace, you can’t live there. Ms. Willis, I’m going to have to caution you. That’s going to be my first time. I have to caution, we have to listen to the questions as asked. And if this happens again and again, I’m going to have no choice but to strike your testimony.
The sparring between Ms. Willis and the defense lawyers grew so tense at various points that the presiding judge, Scott McAfee, warned the parties several times to limit their answers in order to preserve decorum.
Ms. Willis angrily accused defense lawyers of spreading lies about her and Mr. Wade.
“I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial,” she told a defense attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, at one point. It is the defendants, she said, who are on trial for trying to steal an election.
A disqualification would be a major roadblock in the Trump prosecution.
If Judge McAfee determines that Ms. Willis has a conflict of interest, and that it merits disqualification, the case would then be reassigned to another Georgia prosecutor, who would have the ability to continue with the case exactly as it is, make major changes — such as adding or dropping charges or defendants — or to even drop the case altogether.
It would be up to a state entity called the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find someone else to take up the case. The council’s executive director, Pete Skandalakis, has been criticized for moving slowly in the effort to find a prosecutor to consider whether Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, should also face charges related to the Trump case.
But the case against Mr. Trump and the other defendants is a different circ*mstance, since a grand jury has already handed down charges. Mr. Trump and 18 of his allies were charged last August with racketeering in connection with a plot to subvert the 2020 presidential election results. Four of the defendants have already pleaded guilty.
Feb. 15, 2024, 6:50 p.m. ET
Anna Betts
Legal experts were skeptical about a conflict of interest, but said the hearing did not help the prosecutors.
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Several legal experts who observed Thursday’s hearing in the Georgia case against Donald J. Trump and his allies were doubtful that the defense’s questioning and witness testimonies demonstrated a clear conflict of interest on the issue of whether the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, and the special prosecutor, Nathan J. Wade, benefited financially from their relationship and the prosecution.
But the experts added that the day’s proceedings nonetheless did not help the prosecutors overall.
“This has not been a good day for the D.A.’s office,” said Caren Morrison, a former federal prosecutor and an associate professor at Georgia State University College of Law.
The defense spent hours before Judge Scott McAfee probing the relationship and financial transactions between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade, with a former friend of Ms. Willis’s testifying that the romantic relationship began before Mr. Wade was hired for the Georgia election interference case in November 2021. That contradicted the timeline presented by the prosecutors and the testimonies of Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis, who have said it began in early 2022.
“Even if the judge finds there has been no conflict of interest or even the appearance of a conflict, as a matter of public perception, this hearing has been damaging,” Ms. Morrison said. “The painstaking raking over of trips and bills and expenses does nothing to burnish either of their reputations and just gives a lot of fodder to critics of the case.”
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Georgia Prosecutor Fani Willis Delivers Tense Testimony
The Fulton County district attorney, who is overseeing the state’s prosecution of Donald J. Trump, was combative and accused the defense of spreading lies.
“You and Mr. Wade met in October 2019 at a conference?” “That is correct, and I think in one of your motions you tried to implicate I slept with him at that conference, which I find to be extremely offensive.” “Your office objected to us getting Delta records for flights that you may have taken when Mr. Wade.” “Well, no, no, no, look. I object to you getting records. You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. You think I’m on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial. It’s interesting that we’re here about this money. Mr. Wade is used to women that, as he told me one time, the only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal. I don’t need anything from a man. A man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I would give him his money back. I don’t need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who’s ever foot my bills completely is my daddy.” “Mr. Wade visit you at the place you laid your head.” “When?” “Has he ever visited you at the place you laid your head?” “So let’s be clear, because you’ve lied and this – Let me tell you which one you lied in. Right here. I think you lied right here. No, no, no, no. This is the truth. And it is a lie. It is a lie.” “Ms. Willis.” “Mr. Sadow, thank you. We’re going to take five minutes. Be back in five.”
Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University, said that the testimony and evidence presented on Thursday fell short of showing a conflict of interest about financial benefits, which he said was the “key issue” that, if proven, would require the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office to be disqualified from the case against Mr. Trump and his allies.
But he said the testimony of Robin Bryant-Yeartie that contradicted the prosecutors’ timeline could be a “major issue” for Ms. Willis if further evidence shows that she and Mr. Wade “have been less than forthcoming to the court.”
Overall, Mr. Kreis said, the hearing was “more drama than it was clarifying,” adding that “this is really going to come down to credibility and who Judge McAfee is inclined to believe.” He also said that Ms. Willis, who vigorously denied any of the defendants’ claims about the relationship, was “the most forceful witness so far.”
But Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School at Loyola Marymount University, said that simply being on the witness stand placed Ms. Willis in an awkward position.
She is “in a place that no person, let alone no prosecutor, wants to be in. Her judgment and integrity are being challenged in the most public way possible,” Ms. Levinson said.
Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and a former White House ethics lawyer, told The Times in an email that if there is credible evidence that Ms. Willis was not telling the truth to the judge, “that could be devastating for the case even if the matter is unrelated.”
“I’m not impressed with Willis and Wade’s poor judgment, which allowed the defense to take this case way off track,” Mr. Painter said. “I think they should spare us more and just step aside.”
The fact that the hearing was happening at all is a “huge boon for Trump,” Ms. Levinson said.
“Fairly or not, the more we hear about Willis’s personal relationship with Wade,” she said, adding, “the more the public’s faith in the fairness of this prosecution is shaken.”
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Feb. 15, 2024, 5:16 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Today’s hearing is coming to a close. Fani Willis has left the stand, and lawyers are discussing a few housekeeping and legal matters, including how many witnesses are yet to testify. The judge has said that the proceedings will resume tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Feb. 15, 2024, 5:00 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis, the district attorney, is now being questioned by Harry Macdougal, a lawyer for Jeffrey Clark, one of former President Trump's co-defendants in the election interference case.
Feb. 15, 2024, 5:05 p.m. ET
Danny Hakim
Investigations reporter
Macdougal didn't last long. Now Willis is being questioned by Craig Gillen, a former United States attorney and the defense lawyer for David Shafer, the former state chair of Georgia's Republican Party.
Feb. 15, 2024, 4:57 p.m. ET
Danny Hakim
Investigations reporter
“Next topic.” Nobody seems to want to move through this hearing more quickly than the judge, Scott McAfee, who is in the unusual position of trying to limit the inclination of both sides to prolong the proceedings and continue sparring.
Feb. 15, 2024, 4:54 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
In response to more questions about their spending, Fani Willis, the district attorney, said that when they were dating, Nathan Wade “told me one time the only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal.” She added, “There was tension always in our relationship, which is why I would give him his money back. I don’t need anybody to foot my bills.”
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It’s interesting that we’re here about this money. Mr. Wade is used to women that, as he told me one time, the only thing a woman can do for him is make him a sandwich. We would have brutal arguments about the fact that I am your equal. I don’t need anything from a man. A man is not a plan. A man is a companion. And so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why I would give him his money back. I don’t need anybody to foot my bills. The only man who’s ever foot my bills completely is my daddy.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 4:38 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis says her physical relationship with Nathan Wade ended before former President Trump and his allies were indicted by her office in August 2023.
Feb. 15, 2024, 4:33 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Steve Sadow, the Trump lawyer asking questions now, and Fani Willis, the district attorney on the stand, are respected among Atlanta-area lawyers for their intelligence and their sharp courtroom skills. They also share a reputation for throwing sharp elbows. Their tense interaction this afternoon is not surprising.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 4:28 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis’s take on these accusations in a nutshell is that her privacy has been invaded as part of a legal stunt: “It’s like a woman doesn’t have the right to keep her private life private.”
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Who in the prosecution team knew of your personal relationship, and now I’m talking romantic, with Mr. Wade? So, sir, I am extremely private — All I asked is who knew? If the answer is no one knew, that’s fine. I asked you who knew? Answer and then explain Ms. Willis. I am very private. When I supervised Mr Boddie and Mr. McAfee. They didn’t know who I was dating, But I can assure you I was dating somebody so that I kept something private. That’s — my private life is not any mystery to anyone. It’s like a woman doesn’t have the right to keep her private life private. And I’m speaking on this because there have been all these intimations. You still haven’t answered the question, Ms. Willis. I’m sorry. What was the question in your honor?” Is there anyone else who knew about it? And then you can explain. I don’t know. I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t go out telling my business to the world.
Feb. 15, 2024, 4:21 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis’s testimony has a number of audiences: Judge McAfee, who will decide whether she should be disqualfied from the Trump election case; the voters of Fulton County, who will decide whether to re-elect her to a second term later this year; the Fulton County residents who could serve on the Trump trial jury; and people around the country, who have to make up their mind about the legitimacy of her prosecution.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 4:17 p.m. ET
Danny Hakim
Investigations reporter
Steve Sadow, the lawyer representing former President Donald Trump on charges of election interference in Georgia, is starting to ask questions of Fani Willis, the district attorney prosecuting his client.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 4:14 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
In her questioning, Ashleigh Merchant is suggesting that Fani Willis found herself struggling financially after losing a judge’s race in which she lent herself $50,000. Merchant’s argument for disqualifying Willis from the Trump case is that she engaged in self-dealing by hiring her boyfriend and then letting him take her on fancy vacations with the money he was earning from her office.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 4:01 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Judge McAfee has now issued a warning to Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, saying he will strike her testimony if she does not directly answer the questions put to her by the defense lawyers seeking to disqualify her from the Trump case. McAfee formerly worked under Wade in the district attorney’s office.
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2020. Did Mr Wade ever visit you at a place that you resides? He had never been to my home in South Fulton. 2020 was before I knew that a phone call was going to be made. And I going to have to abandon my home. As a result thereof, he never visited, lived at, came to or has seen South Fulton. You qualify that with your home in South Fulton. That’s where I lived in 2020. in 2020 did he ever visit you at a place that you resided? O.K I don’t understand. You’re going to have to give me that. In 2020, I lived in South Fulton. That’s the only place I lived in South Fulton. That’s before I had to abandon my home, judge. And at my home in South Fulton, miss. I never. He never came there. O.K., so if you don’t come someplace, you can’t live there. Ms. Willis, I’m going to have to caution you. That’s going to be my first time. I have to caution, we have to listen to the questions as asked. And if this happens again and again, I’m going to have no choice but to strike your testimony.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:54 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Judge Scott McAfee has, for months now, been able to tamp down the heat when exchanges have grown testy and personal between lawyers in the Georgia Trump case. His calling of a five-minute break just now was a characteristically low-key and effective way for him to maintain order in his courtroom.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:56 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Judge McAfee now says, “You all know what professionalism looks like; we all know what decorum looks like.” Keep in mind that the judge is in his mid-30s. He is lecturing some lawyers who have been practicing roughly as long as he has been alive.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 3:50 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Judge McAfee orders a five-minute break, after Willis shouts out, “It is a lie!” referring to assertions Merchant has made about her and Wade cohabitating.
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Would he come and stay at that condo or visit you there — I’m sorry, visit you there? What condo? What apartment? I want to be clear. So not your house, I know you classified one as house and one as condo, so I’m trying to use those terms. But there’s been more than — see, what you don’t understand is because of this case, I got to move. And so — . Ms. Merchant if you could ask a more precise question. Yes, please. Give me the time period. Did Mr. Wade visits you at the place you laid your head? When? Has he ever visited you at the place you laid your head? So let’s be clear, because you’ve lied in this. Let me tell you which one you lied in. Right here. I think you lied right here. No, no, no, no, no. This is the truth. It is a lie. It is a lie. Ms. Willis, Mr. Sadow, I thank you, we’re gonna take five minutes. Be back in five.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:48 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis said her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade ended in August 2023, after they had a “tough conversation.”
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:49 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Earlier, she said that she considers him a friend, a mentor, and someone she looks up to.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:45 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis, in discussing how she objects to records requests made by the defense lawyer Ashleigh Merchant, tells her, “I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.” It is the defendants, she said, who are on trial for trying to steal an election.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 3:41 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis is asked a question about travel and the location of one of her two children. She says pointedly that she will not discuss the location of a child — a reminder of the scrutinty that the Trump case has placed her and her family under.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 3:34 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis keeps a lot of cash at home, she says, because her father -- a Black Panther, activist and lawyer -- taught her it was good to have money on hand at all times.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:39 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Her tone softened for a few minutes as she seemed to lean into her fondness for storytelling. But the tone turned quickly turned sharp again.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:24 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
This statement reveals Fani Willis's frustration that the narrative of her relationship with Nathan Wade was set by defense filings that she says are inaccurate: “We used to be in a day in time where you had '60 Minutes’ and people did stories and they verified information, and you had this great reporting. But it seems today that a lawyer writes a lie and then it’s printed for all the world to see.”
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:18 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis has taken a lot of punches in today's hearing, and now she is punching back.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:12 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
This is personal right out of the gate. Fani Willis says she finds it “extremely offensive” that a lawyer for one of President Trump's co-defendants would insinuate, in previous filings, that she slept with Nathan Wade when they met in October 2019.
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You and Mr. Wade met in October 2019 at a conference? That is correct. I think in one of your motions, you tried to implicate I slept with him at that conference, which I find to be extremely offensive. I stayed at that conference. Mr. Wade was my teacher. I did not meet him when he taught the class. I was standing outside talking to Lisa Reeves, who was a judge. Me and her were just having a conversation. Mr. Wade walks up and they hug each other. They have some brief conversation. She introduces us. Your honor, I’m going to object. We kind of thought that when you ask the question, you would answer the question without a speech. So I object to the speech. I believe I’m able to explain my answers. We haven’t gotten to the point where Ms. Willis should be treated as hostile. I very much want to be here. So I’m not a hostile witness. I very much want to be here. It’s not so much that you’re hostile Ms. Willis, it would be an adverse witness. Your interests are opposed to Ms. Merchant’s. Ms. Merchant’s intererests are contrary to democracy, your honor. Not to mine. You started dating shortly thereafter, correct? That’s a lie. That’s one of your lies.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:16 p.m. ET
Danny Hakim
Investigations reporter
Willis has repeatedly said the filings by the lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, are filled with “lies.” She added,“Ms. Merchant’s interests are contrary to democracy, your honor, not to mine.”
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Feb. 15, 2024, 3:08 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
After a short break in the proceedings, District Attorney Fani T. Willis of Fulton County is back on the stand.
Feb. 15, 2024, 3:07 p.m. ET
Anna Betts
Fani Willis is under scrutiny for her personal relationship with Nathan Wade.
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Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., is leading the indictment of Donald J. Trump and 14 of his allies for their efforts to overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
In early January, allegations of a romantic relationship between Ms. Willis and Nathan J. Wade, an outside lawyer she hired to help run the election interference case, surfaced in a motion filed by a former Trump campaign official, Michael Roman, who is facing criminal charges related to the case.
After declining to address the allegations for nearly a month, Ms. Willis — the first Black woman to lead Georgia’s largest district attorney’s office — and Mr. Wade acknowledged the relationship in a court filing and said it began months after Mr. Wade was hired in November 2021. On Thursday, Mr. Wade testified that their relationship had ended in summer 2023.
The defense lawyer for Mr. Roman, as well as the lawyers for Mr. Trump and a number of his co-defendants, are seeking to disqualify the two prosecutors and Ms. Willis’s office from handling the case, arguing that the relationship created a conflict of interest. They also accused Ms. Willis of profiting from Mr. Wade’s earnings from the roleby joining him on vacations that he partially paid for.
In response, Ms. Willis’s court filing stated that “while the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain,” they were baseless. The filing added that her relationship with Mr. Wade “has never involved direct or indirect financial benefit” to Ms. Willis. Both Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have said they shared costs on their private travels.
The allegations have already created a distraction and raised the possibility of delays in this high-profile criminal case against Mr. Trump and several allies.
Ms. Willis has sought to have the trial start in August, but no date has been set.
Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim contributed reporting.
Feb. 15, 2024, 2:54 p.m. ET
Richard Fausset
Reporting from Atlanta
Fani Willis will take the stand. “I’m gonna go,” she said.
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Feb. 15, 2024, 12:38 p.m. ET
Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset
Witness says D.A.’s romance with special prosecutor began before she hired him for Trump case.
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In what could be a crucial moment for defense efforts to derail the Georgia prosecution of Donald J. Trump and his allies, a former friend of Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis took the stand on Thursday morning and disputed Ms. Willis’s account of her romantic relationship with a prosecutor.
The defense says the relationship between Ms. Willis and Nathan J. Wade, whom she hired to run the election interference case, has created an untenable conflict of interest. They are seeking to disqualify Ms. Willis and her entire office, a step that would leave the case in limbo.
Defense attorneys have said that the relationship started before Mr. Wade’s hiring in November 2021, but Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have disputed that.
During the court hearing on Thursday, Robin Bryant-Yeartie, a former friend of Ms. Willis’s, testified she had “no doubt” that the relationship predated Mr. Wade’s hiring.
Ms. Bryant-Yeartie said she talked about the relationship with Ms. Willis while it was unfolding, and observed “hugging, kissing, just affection” between Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade before Mr. Wade was hired for the Trump case. She said the relationship had begun in 2019.
Ms. Bryant-Yeartie’s testimony contradicted what Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis have said in court filings. Prosecutors working for Ms. Willis’s office highlighted that Ms. Bryant-Yeartie had had a falling out with Ms. Willis. A friend for many years, she briefly worked at the district attorney’s office for Ms. Willis, but resigned in 2022 and the two stopped speaking.
The testimony was a serious setback for Ms. Willis’s office and led the presiding judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, to allow the defense to put Mr. Wade on the stand later in the morning.
Mr. Wade said Thursday “I wouldn’t have discussed my relationship with Ms. Yeartie or anyone else publicly,” adding, “we’re private people.”
Defense attorneys have said that a conflict of interest exists because Mr. Wade has been paid more than $650,000 by the county since he was hired and has paid for a number of trips he has taken with Ms. Willis.
Mr. Wade insisted in his testimony that the romantic relationship had begun in “early” 2022 after he was hired. And he said that the two had split the costs of their private travels together, to places including Belize, Aruba, Tennessee and California.
He called Ms. Willis an “independent strong woman” who insisted that “she is going to pay her own way.” Regarding a trip to California, she said “everything we did when we got into Napa, she paid for.” But he also said she typically reimbursed him in cash, so there were no receipts available.
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